Police team up with MADD as part of nationwide campaign to curb drunk driving

CHICAGO (August 28, 2019) – Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, joined forces with police departments in Chicago and around the country last weekend for their “Saturation Saturday” initiative aimed at ramping up the effort to arrest drunk drivers on the road, according to an ABC 7 report.

MADD’s website shows MADD and police’s “Saturation Saturday” initiative takes place on the Saturday before Labor Day each year, a popular day for alcohol consumption. They hold simultaneous events in America’s largest municipalities with an increased focus on halting or decreasing the dangerous habit in preparation for the national holiday.

An initiative since 2016, first held in Missouri, “Saturation Saturday” sees increased DUI patrols, sobriety checkpoints, and other enforcement efforts — all with MADD volunteers by officers’ sides as a way to support and encourage the initiative.

And with the number of drunk driving deaths up 9 percent since 2014, experts say the public needs to know that the battle to end this violent crime is intensifying.

One woman who lost her daughter to drunk driving 12 years ago told ABC 7, “I became the victim of a drunk driving crash on January 6, 2008. [My daughter] was the offender and she became her own victim of a drunk driving crash.”

Illinois State Police officials say officers are out every night looking for impaired drivers.

“Every arrest they make. Every DUI arrest we make can save someone’s life,” Lt. Col. David Byrd of the Illinois State Police said.

Saturation Saturday took place on August 24. It coincides with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign, which runs from August 14 through September 2.